Podcast #58: The Sports Dilemma (Plus, a Bonus Announcement!)

At the tail end of baseball season and the beginning of football season, for many Americans, the fall air doesn’t remind us of anything to do with farming or natural events as much as it reminds us of the sports calendar. I don’t know about you, but around here it’s starting to feel like football. Starting this weekend, men will begin spending an incredible amount of time watching their favorite games and making judgment calls about who should be playing, who they should cheer for, and just how angry they should be about their favorite team’s loss. Believe it or not, Ben and I will be joining in on this ritual, so we thought we’d discuss the myriad of issues inherent in these past-times.

But wait, there’s more! In the last 10-15 minutes of the show, Ben and I discuss a series we’ll be publishing next week that we’re calling the Pop Culture 180. Listen to find out what it is, or wait until tomorrow to read an update on the site with all the specifics.

Every week, Richard Clark and Ben Bartlett sit back and discuss the posts of the previous week on Christ and Pop Culture, acknowledge and respond to the big issues in popular culture, and give a sneak peak at the week ahead. We love feedback! If you’d like to respond you can comment on the website, send an email to christandpopculture@gmail.com, or go to our contact page. We would love to respond to feedback on the show, so do it now! Subscribe to us in iTunes by clicking here. While you’re at it, review us in iTunes! We’ll love you forever!

I liked what you had to say about how you were tired of saying that “Jesus is the one that fixes pro athletes, but really he is”. He fixes all of us. :)

Per Josh Hamilton, something nice to touch on would be the fact that he slipped up recently, because as humans, that’s something we do, and that’s a good reason not to “Tim Tebow” our athletes, we should follow who they follow, not them.

I think we can all agree that Ben gets the raw end of the deal here. (And I am a total Facebook booster.)

http://www.christandpopculture.com/ Richard Clark

I basically agree with you, though I would point out that that’s not really the point.

http://nowheresville.us The Dane

Oh come on, you know that giving Ben a raw deal was the point when you conceived this madness! .-= The Dane´s last blog ..20090417.teaParty =-.

petered

There really is a whole world of pop culture issues there in sports. I didn’t get to finish listening to the last few minutes, but you didn’t even get into the issue with Donte Stallworth(killed a person while drunk driving) and such.

Also, that article from the Free Press is one of the worst pieces of journalism ever written. I know that you will write that off as shameless homerism, but the author of the article has a very open dislike of Rodriguez. Not only does he misinterpret many of the actual rules(see: Countable vs. Non-countable hours) but he also asks freshman misleading questions and uses them as further evidence. These students are not unhappy at all with their workload and yet are used as evidence as Rodriguez overworking them. Many players and parents of players have come out as extremely offended by the whole thing. Many coaches around the country, including big ten coaches, have defended Michigan against the accusations, saying that it is normal practice to push players to work more hours than the limit(please note, you can work longer than the limit if it is voluntary) One final note, one of the main arguments of the article is that the extra time takes away from schooling, but fails to note that last year the football team reported its highest average GPA in more than 20 years. I will be willing to bet any amount of money that there will be no serious sanctios from the NCAA.

I don’t know, I am obviously frustrated by this whole thing. There are plenty of people who are much closer to the program that Micheal Rosenburg, and yet this one guy with a (well documented)grudge gets way more attention than all the people who have positive things to say about Michigan.

Rich, I know it is not your thing but there are a lot of issues that arise from sports that are worth discussing. Lets face it, most people care much more about sports than books or even movies, making them an important cultural ifluence.